


Not every soul will sink like the setting sun

by little_fella (na_shao)



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Blood, Dumb aurors in love, Established Relationship, In Public, M/M, Mention of alcohol, Mention of bullet injury, Oral Sex, World War I, blowjob, mention of trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-16 05:11:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18088064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/na_shao/pseuds/little_fella
Summary: “Fuck this shit,” he manages to grunt in disbelief, blood rushing through the arteries still, “‘m not dying on the goddamn battlefield.”“I’ll haunt you until I drive your ghost fucking crazy if you do,” a familiar voice rises behind him, and suddenly colours explode back before Theseus’ eyelids.There’s warm pressure against his head, the rough pads of fingers touching the sensitive skin of his neck; the nudge of a tongue against his teeth.





	Not every soul will sink like the setting sun

**Author's Note:**

> Reposting my tumblr fics here!
> 
> Written for the (late) great event that Fantastic beasts smut week was.

_The bullet’s been extracted, the stitches Edgecombe made are neat, but the wound will scar, Captain—_

Theseus purses his lips— he looks out of it, the anaesthetic wearing off very slowly and leaving him in a state of half consciousness. “Perce?”

“That’s my name,” Percival answers softly as he’s holding the Brit’s hand tightly in his, traces the slight bump of the chemical burn he sustained during the attack; so similar to a bad sunburn, an alternate reality where they’d be enjoying summertime and not the damp winter in the trenches.

Just enough to scorch flesh; just slightly scrapped, but enough to stay.

Enough already—  _too much already_ , Percival thinks bitterly to himself, choking on nothing when he notices how much colour has drained from the younger man’s face. Could have been worse; an organ failure, a leg shattered to pieces, eyes turning white forever; but it’s already too much, and he’s exhausted of seeing men and close friends fall around him like domino pieces.

“Thought the ground would end up being my grave,” Theseus’ voice cuts through the thick air, raspy and hollow.

“I would never have let it be so.”

Outside, their friends and comrades are celebrating the thin victory of being alive, making sure to take a healthy drink from the wine bottle French people had offered them during an afternoon patrol; a healthy swallow for Theseus, too, fallen under bullets but not caught exactly in their death trap. Their strained voices are echoing, barely covered by the rummaging noise coming off from the battlefield nearby.

It’s a sad reality, all these drunken laughs and the forgotten touch of a real smile, of a genuine caress of happiness in the midst of war.

Theseus smiles before he pulls out his flask from his chest pocket and takes a hearty drink under Percival’s scrutinising gaze.

“Don’t look at me like that,” the redhead mumbles, eyebrows drawn together, “it mixes well with the anaesthetic.”

“I sometimes forget that I am in love with a man with  _delightful_  tastes.”

Theseus makes a small interested noise. “Of course.”

 _Love,_  he wonders quietly in the recesses of his mind,  _is that really love or are you mistaken? Or maybe you should just stop overthinking, Theseus. Maybe that it would be a good idea._

He inhales, a tickle in the back of his head; draws a couple of breaths in while screwing the cap back on his flask.

“It’s getting late,” he says flatly, voice rough around the edges, and indeed, the sky is darkening outside, which he cannot see for himself properly but understands by the tame rays of pastel-pink red filtering through the cracks of the camp tent, shades so dim they are barely there. “And there’s no more snow. Just slush.”

It’s almost pretty, this sight. As if snow had made the horror a little less horrible for a moment, a little more bearable.

It catches him in quiet moments like these, the idea that this — this thing they have with Percival — might not be real, that it might crumble down eventually—

Or that it perhaps never was, simply a product of his imagination, an equation thought resolved and eventually full of mistakes.

Just anaesthetic speaking, really;  _screw this._

“Thes?”

He catches himself staring at the horizon, unfocused.

“Perce?” he answers softly as his gaze lands back upon Percival. His throat itches still from the long exposition to chlorine and phosgene— he’s been lucky, luckier than some other soldiers who ended up with blisters inside their trachea, all along the mucous coating.

“You were zoning out,” Percival declares, just above a whisper, and smiles sideways at him. There’s a gentle, tender look on the older man’s face and perhaps Theseus is falling even deeper, head first, and  _fuck_ , doesn’t he care about the free fall when there’s a pleased heat settling low in his spine.

There are scattered reports at Percival’s feet, written both in French and English, and Theseus catches a few sentences despite clouds eating up his mind—  _percées sur le front Est, apport de 50 soldats—_

Theseus peers up into Percival’s eyes, a faint trace of barely contained bitterness curling up in his voice. “This goddamn war is nowhere near over yet, isn’t it?”

_Will it ever end? Will we have to die here to see the last of it?_

The mud is squelching beneath his boots and the green glow of the last burning remnants of chlorine is hypnotically beautiful in the dim light of this snowy day, a quiet dress worn over the pristine nude snowflakes gathered to the ground. Theseus is shivering hard when the cold seeps up through his body, his bleeding leg making him shake— his lungs tremble when a cough blooms, streaks of pale blue light eating at his eyes.

Theseus swallows hard over the lump forming in his throat.

_I’m going to die here._

“Fuck this shit,” he manages to grunt in disbelief, blood rushing through the arteries still, “‘m not dying on the goddamn battlefield.”

“I’ll haunt you until I drive your ghost fucking crazy if you do,” a familiar voice rises behind him, and suddenly colours explode back before Theseus’ eyelids.

There’s warm pressure against his head, the rough pads of fingers touching the sensitive skin of his neck; the nudge of a tongue against his teeth.

“I’m dying, aren’t I,” he whispers to the empty hum of the rot circling them.

The air’s gorged in the taste of metal and Theseus wants to throw up, wants to erase all this fucking blood and the smears all over himself and the poor lads who didn’t make it out of the battlefield around him.

“I’ve got you, Thes, and no, you’re not dying,” and it’s a kind murmuring noise which he dearly wishes to focus upon—

Though it’s the hum of the earth’s song that gets to him the most—

Nothingness.

Void.

Nothing to hear; utter silence, where there should have been fellow soldiers making noise.

_Snap back._

_Snap back to the present._

Percival leans in and presses his lips lightly over Theseus’, fleeting and soft and rough at the same time, cracked and coated in blood and melted snow.

“Thanks,” Theseus murmurs weakly but adoringly before he takes another swing from his flask, the alcohol a tickle upon his skin while he takes a breath of air.

There’s naked concern on Percival’s face at the sight. “You shouldn’t drink this much right after your surgery.”

“It hurts so bad, Perce,” Theseus sighs as he straightens up unsteadily in his metal cot, then feels thick, calloused fingers tuck a strand of hair behind his ear, and it’s hard not to lean into the touch, warm, so warm,  _so damn warm._

He puts his fingers on the Brit’s cheek, turning his face so he can kiss him all over again to start the dance, his mouth open, tongue searching for Theseus’.

He itches for more kisses, biting and fueled; for a sense of belonging, a sense of  _being alive._

_You could have died. You could have died._

His mouth is hovering over his own and suddenly, Theseus feels like he can’t breathe anymore, caught up in the closeness of Percival’s dirty brown eyes, the colour of coffee and diluted gasoline, and Percival’s thumb is rubbing over the swell of his bottom lip and he’s completely gone.

So gone he doesn’t even notice as the other man crawls up on him and unbuckles his belt, doesn’t notice his warmth bleeding all over his lower body.

Theseus’ hips jerk at the touch of two hands spreading his thighs apart; a shiver sparks down his spine; his breath stutters, an exhale of shock and a violent push to let reality set back in as he feels lips on his skin, low, extremely low, until a tongue presses against his slit and goes down, down, down—

“Perce,  _what the fuck are you doing?_ ” he hisses in a horrified tone, scowls fiercely; it’s a struggle enough to keep his hips still instead of bucking into the warmth of the other man’s mouth.

Percival lets go of his cock with a wet sound, rests his forehead against the red-haired man’s thigh, lust hitting him— and the fucker,  _the fucker_  has the nerve to  _roll his eyes._ “Cooking dinner, very obviously. As you can see, I’m taking care of a carrot.”

“Piss off! We’re in bloody  _public_ , we can’t—”

“Do you see anyone around? They’re all in the other tents.”

His voice comes off as calm and relaxed with undertones of mischief and something Theseus can’t quite put his finger on, his face alight with mirth; raising an eyebrow suggestively, he waves around the medical tent, empty except for them two and the wizard at the very far back outside, securing the medical spaces, the hand previously sitting on Theseus’ hip leaving an imprint of warmth in its wake.

Theseus takes a deep breath. “Perce,” he starts, then trails off, brow furrowing at his partner’s rising grin— more like a setting sun, now; but the most gorgeous one, and the most infuriating, too. “ _No_ , you’re not  _blowing me_  in the bloody medical tent, you nitwit! There’s a wizard  _right outside!_ ”

His cock is engulfed by a hot mouth before he can even find it in himself to protest, Percival working his lips halfway down the length, slowly taking his cock deeper into his mouth.

Theseus bucks his hips and bites hard his knuckles in an attempt to stop moaning —  _be silent, be silent, be fucking silent —_ but it’s really difficult to do as such when the older man is swallowing him inch by inch, slowly,  _ever so slowly_ , with his eyes closed in apparent bliss. The sharp noise of want that burns down his throat is too big to hold back, and so Theseus allows it into the open air; electric, damp and so loud he is surprised no one seems to have heard.

“ _Merlin—_  what— how are you so—  _why— so enthusiastic?_ ”

No answer; no words, just touches, a swipe of waves crashing against the shore, building in intensity, always.

Theseus’ moans fill the empty room with the pleasure Percival is giving him, open mouth puffing hot air against Theseus’ length, scrambling to get more cock in his mouth, sucking it as if he were starving.

_I was so scared and I need to get you back against me, to feel you and touch you to be able to believe you’re not gone—_

He tips his head back, exposing his neck for Percival only, and feels his partner’s nails sink into the heated flesh of his thighs. His spine tingles with heat and affection, relishing in the way their skins stick together, in the way his partner is showing him how much dread had seeped into his blood at the thought that Theseus could have been gone forever.

He feels his cock slide all the way down Percival’s throat, and fuck,  _fuck if it_  isn’t easy to lose himself in the slick slide of the older man’s tongue along his length, perfect and hot and so much more real than the bullets that flew past him a few hours ago.

“ _Fuck,_ ” Theseus whimpers, more uneven than he’s intended, “the— the nurses— they’ll come and see—”

To which Percival replies by sucking even more of his cock inside if it’s even humanly possible, and the British Auror groans, thinks,  _how come he doesn’t have my entire dick in his mouth by now, I could have sworn he had reached the fucking hilt already._

It curls inside of his lower belly, this feeling of utter affection and love for this stupid American Auror, the silliest he’s ever encountered and who happens to ruin his circuits; the circuit of his whole body, his entire limbs.

Particles and wave, and Theseus makes a strangled noise and he’s trembling above Percival, biting his lips— but he can’t stop, can’t hold back, can’t stop thrusting into his mouth—  _can’t._  Leaning back in his cot, he presses the palms of his cold hands to his eyes, presses hard, sees white.

Alive— that’s how he feels when he eventually comes, messy and hot and sticky down the older man’s throat. Percival sucks him dry eagerly, releasing him with a small pop, and his chin is glistening with saliva and come, lips spit slick, red like a gift;  _a mess of colours_ , twilight and melon and cream like flesh kissed by summertime.

_You’re a mess, Percival Graves._

“Messy,” Theseus manages to mumble through the white stargazing sky of his orgasm, pin pricks and needles under his skin. “Tuck me in, the nurses—  _the nurses,_  Perce,  _fuck._ ”

A roll of eyes and a thousand wet giggles; and Percival shakes his head as his sticky hands smear patterns along the curves of the redhead’s hips. “I’ve just blown the fucking life out of you and that’s all you have to say?  _Messy? Tuck me in?_ ”

“Well, it  _is_  messy, dearest, and I certainly don’t want them to find me with my cock out in the Captain’s face.”

In the midst of soft laughter and grumpy grunts on Theseus’ part, Percival proceeds to crawl back up to kiss him stupid; he has taken him in until they are both spent and Theseus is quiet in the sheets when they kiss and make their tongues dance yet again in a swirl of late blooms and red-spiked petals.

If he didn’t know Theseus that well, he would have dismissed the whole discussion, thought of other horizons and would have brushed aside the slight hurt of not being acknowledged in his  _weird_ , maybe, but  _tangible_  love declaration.

The thing is—

He knows him.

Knows the curve of his neck, the slight bumps of his scar that run along his arm and wrist; the soft, coppery tattoo of Newt’s moving coordinates inked along the line of his ribs  _(and how he likes to touch it in complete darkness)_ ; summertime swollen into these tall blooms that his veins are—

And so he _knows._

Percival knows it’s Theseus’ way of swallowing back the emotion and gripping sensations in order to put it easily forward in words that seem so far removed from the feeling but actually are tender; he can feel his heartbeat  _(thunder, rummaging thunder)_  answering his touch when he trails his fingers down his chest, a fine tremble through his limbs—

“I loved it.”

A breath and a smile; it itches pleasantly, this firelight through the hardest possible situation.

And—

“… And I love  _you_.” A beat. “But, really, Perce, what went through your mind? Blowing me  _in public—_ ”

Outside, snow starts curling up again in the air, pink setting rays of sun long forgotten in the dim evening blues.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me @ angryzilla on tumblr and @ spreadtheashes on twitter.
> 
> Comments are greatly appreciated!


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